Online game sales booming

While sales of video games at traditional retail outlets have declined significantly, the digital distribution market saw big gains last month. IGN reports their own Direct2Drive download service saw its sales increase by 56 percent while Valve reports a 97 percent increase in download sales:

Valve revealed to IGN that the company's Steam service, a platform where users can download games directly to their computer, has seen a whopping 97% increase in download sales year-over-year. It should come as no surprised if we continue to see big-named titles available on the service in the future.

IGN's own direct download service, Direct2Drive, has seen an equally impressive sales increase of 56%.

"Direct2Drive has shown phenomenal growth from 2008 to 2009 and we expect more of the same into 2010," said Jeff Steele, VP of Digital Distribution for Direct2Drive.